Qualcomm warns of chip shortage

Results threatened by TSMC slow down

Qualcomm has said that while there is strong demand for its smartphone chips, it is getting tricky to fill customer orders.

The Wall Street Journal said that Qualcomm's growth in the current quarter could be limited by a shortfall in chip supplies.

Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm's chief executive, told the Journal that customers do not like being let down.

Qualcomm has had to boost its spending to help manufacturing companies begin to help meet its needs for new chips.

This will not cause a problem in the second quarter where the company's net income more than doubled to $2.23 billion from $999 million last year.

Qualcomm's results for the latest period include a $1.9 billion gain on the sale of its wireless spectrum to AT&T, meaning that revenues increased by 28 percent to $4.94 billion from $3.87 billion. Chip sales rose 29 percent to $152 million.

Qualcomm thinks it will make $4.85 billion which is more or less what analysts had thought.

But in the third quarter things will come a little unstuck because of TSMC. The company's third-quarter forecast was for for shipments of between 144 million to 152 million chips.

Jacobs told analysts on a conference call that he expects "significant" improvement in chip supplies by the quarter ending in December.

Qualcomm is stepping up investments associated with preparing its products for a coming version of Windows from Microsoft, which will work with Qualcomm chips.